Dorobo Kumiai Muyo
by Masaki's Dirty Laundry
Summary: This is the product of a lifelong obsession with Tenchi Muyo and a much more resent obsession with Elder Scrolls IV


Tenchi Muyo is not my property, nor do I intend to profit by it.

Dorobo Kumiai Muyo

(No Need for a Thieves' Guild)

Preface

"Well now, didn't this just turn out wonderfully?" Washu poked at her translucent laptop trying to make sense of the last few hours. She sat in what would have otherwise been empty space if not for the numerous shards of debris drifting by. Sitting on a particularly large chunk of debris, roughly the size of a small house, she poured over page after page of digital readouts trying to piece together exactly what went wrong. "Hmm," she thought out loud. "Maybe my video card renders too fast? You'd think Terran games could handle 2,000,000 terabyte processors." She grabbed a cardboard box drifting nearby and dumped its contents on the floor. She picked up a booklet and started reading the back. "For customer support dial…" She looked around then smirked. "I should have known that… phones won't work inside a dimensional whirlpool. I wonder if they have anything in the FAQ." She flipped through the book but found nothing of use. Becoming frustrated, she exclaimed. "Oh this is just perfect! Don't these stupid Terrans know anything about computer processors! All the stuff they mention here isn't worth wasting on a three-year-old!"

She threw the book away and watched it drift into emptiness to reemerge in some unknown reality and quite possible cause a lot of confusion and potentially destructive wars that she didn't care to think about at the moment. At the moment she was more concerned about her own present situation. She sat with her arms crossed in a huff eying the chaotic nothingness around her. Massive galaxy-wide vortexes of reality and anti-reality swirled into and out of existence. Entire universes burst fourth in cataclysmic declaration of purpose only to fade away moments later. Before her stretched causality itself; all that exists, all that will exist, and all that had existed was within her view inside the timeless dimensional eddy. She sighed. "This place wouldn't be nearly as boring if I could just play my game."

What had started as a little relaxation for Washu had turned into a nightmare relived. Interested to see what Terran computer games were like, and somewhat frustrated at the fact that she hadn't completed any inventions in all of two days, Washu had gone out to a local computer store and put down a fist-full of yen for a copy of some sort of crazy, all-encompassing, new-age, highly addictive, role playing game she fully intended to win in under 12 hours. "State-of-the-art?" she had through. "Hah, these Terrans don't know what that means." And with the unyielding pride of a samurai warrior and the common sense of a lung-fish, Washu plugged Oblivion into her dimensional cause-and-effect controller. No sooner had she finished scanning for spyware then, with a crack and a bang, she found herself floating in pure nothingness eyeing a blue screen of death and pounding ctrl-alt-delete into her keyboard.

Now, what felt like hours, though what was technically no time at all since time didn't exist in pseudo-reality, she sat in deep thought trying to work out her next move. Her reboot disk was lost somewhere in her desk amid printer CD ROMs and America Online free offers. Finding it would take hours, not that it mattered as her reboot disk, and her America Online disks, her printer, and her desk were presently drifting through any number of random unknown universes. "I guess I have no choice." She shrugged and rolled up her sleeves about as far as short sleeves can be rolled. "I'll have to start from scratch and reprogram everything. I just hope I can find the others before the game's main quest takes effect." She sighed a desperate little sigh. "Don't worry Tenchi. I'll find you as soon as I can. If any one of us knows how Terran games work, it's you."

Where Tenchi was, where Ayeka was, where Ryoko and Sasami and Mihoshi and Kiyone and little Ryo-Ohki and all the other members of the family were, Washu didn't have a clue. They could be scattered anywhere across the beautifully rendered landscape of Oblivion, playing any race or class their unconscious saw fit. Amid the millions of AIs and online players, they would somehow have to make themselves known to her. They would somehow have to do something so outrageous, so mind-bogglingly unpredictable that only a blind man would miss it, and only by a narrow margin. "Hmm," she thought, "this make take a few hours."

Chapter 1

"No Need for Beggars"

Part A

The birds chirped joyfully in the bright rays of the early morning sun as they radiated downward, warming the blood of the inhabitants of Anvil. Even only an hour after sunrise, the market places were abuzz with locals and travelers alike eager to find the best goods at the best prices. Adventurers seeking the necessities for survival struggled alongside house wives and servants for food and drink at low prices. Scholars, bards, philosophers, mages, poets, and collectors packed themselves into every bookstore in the city, eager for the newest texts. Great lords and common folk hurried about energized by the warm morning air, and in the middle of the din a shrill small voice cried out desperate.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Sasami shouted as high over the din as she could, "Please come and get your fortune taken!" She stood on a pile of crates at one corner of Anvil's market square. Even at her elevated position, she was overshadowed by piles of goods waiting to be sold at the dozens of stalls placed seemingly at random in and around the square. "Please come and get your fortune read! You can't start your day right unless you know what's going to happen!" She sighed. "They can't hear me." Below her, sitting on an old wooden box next to a wicker bird-cage, her older sister sighed.

"This was hopeless from the beginning wasn't it?" Ayeka sat with her hands on her cheeks, slumped over. Sasami climbed down next to her.

"We can't give up now, Ayeka. If we don't raise enough money we won't be able to pay off our debts."

"Look around Sasami." She gestured to the teeming mob before them. "How are you going to get any customers out of that mess is beyond me."

"Cheer up Ayeka. We'll get some customers real soon. I just know it. Once everybody buys what they came for, they'll be lining up to get their fortunes read."

"Sasami," Ayeka said in a manner that made Sasami painfully aware of the naiveté of her comment. "Once these people have what they want they'll leave. Nobody comes here to shop at leisure."

"But we just can't give up!" Sasami pouted. "There has to be something we can do. I don't want to sleep outside again Ayeka. I want my old clothes back! I want my old bed! I want food! We just can't give up now!" She scurried to the top of the crates. "Ladies and gentlemen!" she shouted with tears in her eyes. "Please come and let us tell you your future! You've got nothing to lose, so please come and do it NOW! Please please please!"

"Just give it up Sasami," Ayeka sighed. "We'll never get any customers…"

"Oh honey look!" Ayeka's eyes shot up. A young couple stood eying her and the birdcage.

"Hey!" Sasami cheered, "Our fist customers!" Somewhat dumbfounded, it took Ayeka a minute to overcome the improbability of this.

"O-oh… Oh yes!" She shot to her feet. The couple reeled back. "Welcome young friends!" she chirped. "Have you come to take a glimpse of what fate has in store for you?"

"Fortune tellers?" the woman said, sounding disappointed. "I thought you were selling the bird."

"T-the bird?"

"Yes, is it for sale?"

"W-well… not r-really…"

"Oh shoot. And here I've gone and gotten your hopes up."

"Y-yes…"

"Honey," said the man, "why don't you give her a chance to read your fortune to make up for it."

"Alright, I'll give it a try."

"You will?" Sasami and Ayeka exclaimed joyfully.

"Of course, how does it work?

"Well then, let me show you." Ayeka squatted next to the bird cage. From the box she produced a smaller narrower wooden box with two dozen individual square stone platelets standing on their ends, one after the other. The platelets were separated by wooden dividers within the box. "Now," Ayeka gestured for the couple to squat in front of her. She presented the woman with the box. "It's very simple really. Using my powers of telepathy, I will ask our little birdie here what he knows of your fate. Birds are very sensitive to such things you see."

"Oh!" said the woman. "I've heard of this! The legion still watches for bird signs before battle."

"Yes," said the man, "but I think that's more tradition that pra…"

"Now then!" Ayeka cut him off. "Let us begin!" Turning to the bird, she clapped three times, bowed her head, muttered something incomprehensible, then leaned back and shouted, "Oh Divinities of Earth and Sky, bring to us your messenger in this bird. Show us the fate of these two. Show us your will oh mighty Divines!" With her last line, Ayeka yanked the top off the birdcage, at which point the bird promptly flew away. The three of them sat in silence for a moment. Ayeka didn't move, mortified beyond all possible comprehension.

"Um, did something go wrong?" the woman asked.

"Come on honey." The man pulled her to her feet. "You should know better than to fall for beggars' tricks like these." The couple merged into the crowd. Ayeka didn't move.

"I-it'll come back… right Sasami?" she asked quietly. Sasami, who stood behind her with a sort of pitiful smile on her face said, "I don't think so Ayeka."

"Oh… alright." Ayeka let her arms fall to her sides. "How much money do we owe now Sasami?"

"About… 32,000 gold…"

"And whose bright idea was this anyway?"

"Um… yours…"

"Alright…" After another long moment of silence, Ayeka snapped. She jumped to her feet, kicked the box, kicked the birdcage, and screamed. "I hate this city! I hate it! Hate it! Hate! Hate! Hate!"

"Calm down Ayeka."

"Hate! Hate! Hate! Hate! Hate! Hate! Hate! Ha-ate!" With one last angry shout, Ayeka kicked the corner of a crate, which brought down an avalanche of boxes on top of her. Pinned under the merchandise of some now very angry shop keepers, Ayeka began to cry.

In all of Tamriel, no port was as large or exciting as Anvil. Situated on the western coast of the province of Cyrodiil, it was the starting point for the famous Gold Road, only a week's journey to Imperial City, the heart of the Tamriel Empire. Every day, hundreds of pounds of merchandise and tens of thousands of gold pieces entered Anvil's ports to be circulated through the city's market place, making the numerous inhabitants of Anvil exceedingly rich. From here, all goods eventually made their way to Imperial City, the largest single trading center in the Empire. It was at Anvil that the commerce that gave Tamriel its strength began. It was here where people from all over the continents would arrive to trade, to travel, to explore, and to seek out their fortunes.

This was how a young man in strange clothing found his way to Anvil. Disembarking at the city waterfront, his first impressions of the city were not great. The waterfront was where the beggars and thieves typically lived, but it was also a market place in its own right. While ship captains and traders negotiated more lucrative deals outside the storehouses, smaller stalls sold home-made, used, or even stolen nick-nacks and what-nots to ignorant travelers and the like. This was also where Sasami and Ayeka found themselves after being rather violently evicted from the market district.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Ayeka said lethargically. "Don't start your visit to Tamriel without seeing how much fun you'll have. Come get your palm read here." Sasami sat next to her, trying to cheer her up.

"Don't cry Ayeka. We'll make all the money we need, so please don't cry."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Ayeka drudged on in a daze. "Don't start your visit to Tamriel without seeing how much money you'll lose."

"D-don't say that Ayeka." For the most part, the crowd ignored the two. There were far better things to spend hard-earned and even, or rather especially, hard-stolen money on inside the city, but for the young man just recently disembarked from a long journey, a palm reading actually sounded like a good idea. He approached them.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"Hey, a customer!" Sasami shook her sister. "Ayeka, look, a customer."

"Ladies and gentlemen," Ayeka repeated. "Don't start your visit to Tamriel without knowing the day you'll die."

"A-ayeka!"

"Is she alright?" the young man asked. Sasami laughed nervously.

"She's alright. She's just… a little sleepy."

"Oh…?"

"Y-yeah…"

"Ladies and gentlemen, don't start your trip to Tamriel without knowing the date of Armageddon."

"Is… she really that good?"

"Um… no… I don't think anyone is. Hey Ayeka," she shook her sister violently. "We have a customer. Snap out of it already!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, don't start your visit to customer without… customer… customer!" She shot up like a rod. The young man jumped back. "Well good day sir!

Care you have your palm read?"

"S-seriously?"

"Why yes! You know I can tell you anything you need to know!"

"Are… you alright?"

"Ayeka?" Sasami asked.

"Why I'm perfectly fine sir. Now then may I have your palm?"

"Uh… o-okay…" He gave her his hand.

"Oh my, look at this life line! You've got a long life ahead of you. And this love line seems very fascinating. Looks like you've had a bit of trouble in the past too. Well I'm afraid that won't end…"

"Excuse me."

"Yes?"

"Shouldn't you be… looking?"

"Looking?" Ayeka had started talking before she realized it. She hadn't even looked down. "Oh," she laughed a ridiculous laugh. "I'm sorry. I'll start over!" She stared at his hand for a moment. Then, she gasped. The man pulled his hand away.

"What is it?" Sasami asked. Ayeka stared at the man. He stared back with an uneasy expression.

"W-what?" He asked.

"Y-you are…"

"You… are…"

"W-what am I?"

"You are…" The stared at each other. Then, with a confident smile, Ayeka exclaimed "You're a healer aren't you sir?" The young man fell backwards.

"Are you alright?" Sasami jumped forwards to help him up.

"S-seriously?" He asked, half-stunned.

"Why?" asked Ayeka. "Was I wrong?" He smiled a nervous smile.

"By a little…" Ayeka sighed heavily.

"I knew it. I am no good at this. Palm reading is such a pathetic little trick and I still can't even do it."

"Please don't say that." The young man rose to his feet. "I don't mind really. I've kinda always wanted to be a healer."

"Really?" said Sasami. "Hear that Ayeka, you were right! You will be a healer someday sir. I just know it because my sister knows everything!" Ayeka gave the young man a timid smile. He smiled back.

"Here, I owe you this." He handed her a small pouch.

"Oh no!" Ayeka suddenly blushed, and against all reason said, "I couldn't possibly…"

"What?" Sasami shouted.

"But if you insist…" Ayeka added. The young man pulled four gold coins from the pouch and proceeded to hand them to her. The moment his hand touched hers, her heart skipped a beat.

"Are you alright?" he asked. She couldn't speak. Sasami stood captivated by what she saw. Things seemed much too romantic for a girl her age to understand. At least that's what she told Ayeka. Then, as if anything more revolting couldn't have been mustered to ruin the moment, a huge fat man charged out of nowhere and hit their hands hard. The coins flew into the air, and he grabbed at them with one large plump grubby fist.

"Well now, looks like you finally made some money for me, eh little lady?" He sneered at Ayeka, flashing green and yellow teeth. "About time you two amounted to something. I was starting to think I'd make you pay your debt in other ways." His huge gut shook as he laughed. "Keep this up and maybe one day I can let you go."

"Hey!" said Sasami, "we were going to eat with that money."

"You can eat what I give ya and pay me for it later."

"That is not fare!" Ayeka exclaimed. "How will we ever pay you off if you keep forcing us to pay these ridiculous loans, not to mention the interest you keep adding?"

"Oh, is something about our little deal upsetting you?" He lumbered closer. He was an intimidating man, even to a strong-willed woman like Ayeka. He scowled and said, "If you have a problem with it, I've got good beds back at the inn. You can pay off all your debts in one night's hard work princess." Then he turned to Sasami and, as if he were trying to somehow be more of a letch, added "Some time on your back wouldn't hurt either, eh cutie?" Ayeka stiffened.

"You will not talk to her that way!" She held her head up and glared at the man.

"Oh, and what are you going to do about it?" He smiled a big, wide, green grin and breathed his fowl rotten breath directly into her nostrils. She struggled not to pass out.

"Excuse me." The young man stepped in with a wide innocent grin.

"What is it?" the fat man demanded.

"Well…" he said, somewhat uneasy. "It's just… you didn't do anything."

"What?"

"You didn't do anything, s-so you don't deserve to be paid. I'd like my money back please." He held out his hand. The large man knocked it away.

"You'll get nothing and like it!"

"But it's my money and…"

"These girls are my property boy! Whatever money they make belongs to me. Everything they have belongs to me. I own them!"

"I think that's going a bit overboard…"

"If you don't like it you can just shove off boy."

"But I don't think…"

"I said shove off!" He raised his hands to strike. There was a sudden rush of movement. He found his right hand up in the air, palm open, gold pouring out and into the hand of the young man, who continued his innocent grin and held the gold out to Sasami.

"Here, this is yours. Thank you for the good job." Stunned, Sasami took it.

"Um… Wow, thank you! You're really strong aren't you?"

"Strong? Me? N-no, not really."

"Hey, that's my money!"

"Say Sasami, why don't you go put that somewhere safe for now. Your sister will be alright." Sasami nodded and skipped away, but not before bowing and saying "Thank you very much sir!"

"Get back here you little witch!" The fat man tried to chase, but before he knew it he was on the ground, a victim of a well-placed foot. Sasami disappeared into the crowd.

"Sorry about that." The young man blushed and rubbed the back of his head. "It's just, you know, she needed the money…" He turned to Ayeka. "Is that okay?"

"W-what? Oh! Okay? Of course!" Ayeka bowed. "Thank you very much, I…"

"Hey!" The fat man managed to pull himself to his feet. "Hey guards! Guards, this man robbed me! He stole my money! Guards!" Only when Anvil city guards appeared in the crowds making their way towards them did Ayeka notice the rather incriminating clothing she and the young man were wearing. With all of her clothes and positions confiscated, Ayeka looked like nothing more than the average city beggar. The young man, on the other hand, looked like a professional thief. He wore a black cloak and hood over a brown cloth coat, chain male hanging over his hips and visible at his collar. The sleeves of the coat ended at the elbow, after which skin-tight black sleeves stretched from an unseen source to the two leather gloves, each one ending about half-way up his forearm. His black baggy pants were tucked into his shin-high dirty brown boots, and a thin narrow sword with a decorated wooden hilt hung from his hip along side a mean looking dagger. He had a thick burlap sack hanging from his back and another at each hip. Finally, his hair was tired in the back in a short little pony tail, the fashion, of which she was vaguely aware, of someone from the eastern islands. Naturally, the guards came to him first.

"What's going on here?" one of them demanded. The cellulite on the fat man's arm shook violently as he accused the young man of stealing, adding a ludicrously large number of gold to the original amount.

"Thief!" he accused. "This man is a thief. Take him away now!" The guard eyed the fat man wearily. He must have had a bit of a reputation, because the other guards were eying him as well. Finally, the lead guard sighed and moved towards the young man.

"Alright pal, time to go." The young man frowned.

"Go?"

"That's right, you've been accused of a crime. It's time to go."

"But, but I can't."

"You don't have a choice," the guard added forcefully.

"But I just got here. I can't go to jail now!"

"Look! You don't have a choice kid! Now shut up and come with us."

"I don't think that will be necessary." From out of the blue an old man with a ponytail down to his knees appeared and, with a wide grin, slapped his hands onto the young man's shoulders. "This young man is with me." The guards eyed him over then rather bluntly said, "So?" The old man looked somewhat surprised; as if they were suppose to recognize him. He coughed to regain his composure.

"Gentlemen, I am Lord Katsuhito Masaki, one of the wealthiest men in town and the grandfather to this young man before you."

"Then why haven't we heard of you?" The old man coughed again.

"I'm also a personal friend of the counts and have on many occasions bartered deals with foreign traders on his account."

"Get to the damn point already!" a guard demanded. The old man coughed twice. The young man looked mortified.

"G-grandpa…"

"My point gentlemen…" the old man said calmly. "Is this… Goodbye!" A huge thick white cloud suddenly swirled out of nowhere, engulfing the old man and his grandson. Then just as soon as it had appeared, it was gone.

"What in the world!" The guards yelled. "Hey! Where'd you go? Get back here!" The guards and fat man all crowded around the place the two used to be, yelling in every direction, oblivious to everything else, including Ayeka. She stood off to the side.

"Amazing," she thought. "He really is something amazing…" She took a step back. "He's incredible too…" She took another step back. "Absolutely incredible…." She took another step back. "I certainly do hope I get to see him again." She turned and ran for her life.


End file.
